Food Industry News, Insights, and Education for the CPG Community

As Project NOSH L.A. rapidly approaches, the team is excited to announce the preliminary agenda for the conference. The event, which will be held on Nov. 1st and 2nd, will bring together entrepreneurs, investors, industry thought leaders, and suppliers for two days of networking, strategizing, learning and noshing.

Patagonia, long seen as a leader in outdoor gear and apparel, has decided to step up the pace of its move out of the changing room and into the kitchen with the expansion of their Patagonia Provisions line. With 29 SKUs, including soups, bars, jerky, cereal and more, the line is on its way to become a key flanker to Patagonia’s core business.

Two years ago, Johnson and Wales University (JWU) along with longtime entrepreneurs and strategic consultants Michael Allio, Ken Levy and Steve Lane, formed the Food Innovation Nexus (FIX) — a food and beverage incubator, angel fund and consulting group.

At Expo East one of the most popular topics of discussion was investment. Who’s getting it, how much and from whom. Today, just a few short weeks after the show ended, the team AccelFoods, an accelerator and investment fund for packaged food and beverage companies, announced the newest additions to their portfolio. The new round includes investments as part of larger raises by Brami Beans and SkinnyDipped Almonds.

Having seen his share of the snack aisle, Rob Ehrlich (the founder of Pirate’s Booty and SexyPop) is ready to take on his greatest challenge yet – bringing vegan food to the masses. The “gourmet snack food visionary” has plans to take the stigma out of “vegan” with the launch of Vegan Rob’s, a plant-based snack line.

Goldberg, a former Wall Street executive, told our team all about his journey from antidepressants to clean-living organic foodie and media figure, with conversational stops along the way on the offerings at Expo East, the difference between Ripple Foods and almond milk, and, most importantly, what he’d do if faced with the choice of eating Arby’s or a bag of organic palm sugar.

Natural food investment keeps growing and the opportunity to meet a potential growth business is one of the biggest opportunities drawing private equity and strategics to events like Natural Products Expo East, which concluded last week. At the Baltimore show, Editor-in-Chief Jeff Klineman and Wellvest Capital’s David Thibodeau sat down at the show to discuss the progress of the natural and organic food business through the lens of decades, rather than years.

Over 14,000 CPG manufacturers, marketers and formulators will gather next week (October 4-8) at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas for SupplySide West 2016.

At this year’s Natural Products Expo East, there were salty, sweet, meat-based, plant-based, crunchy, creamy foods as far as the eye could see. Project NOSH walked the entire show floor, which included 1,450 exhibiting brands, and picked our favorite new products debuting at the show.

That gorilla grew fast! After just over two years in business, raw nuts and seeds snack brand Gorilly Goods) has sold a controlling stake of the company to cereal and snack company Nature’s Path.

At the upcoming Project NOSH L.A. conference on Nov. 1 and 2, hundreds of entrepreneurs, industry leaders, suppliers and investors will come together to discuss the current landscape of the food industry and how they can grow their businesses. Helping brands achieve these goals will be three speakers who have just been added to the Project NOSH lineup.

Today, grocery delivery service FreshDirect announced it had closed a $189 million round led by J.P. Morgan Asset Management on behalf of its PEG Digital Growth Fund II L.P. Also investing in the round was second-time investor W Capital and AARP’s Innovation Fund.

To highlight its deep ties to Madagascar, Madecasse chocolate has launched an innovative new sampling program staffed solely with former Madagascar Peace Corps volunteers.

Now half a year into its new leadership, Bobo’s Oat Bars is making changes, trying to bring the fresh aura of the perimeter into the decidedly center store-bound nutrition bar category. A packaging redesign and strategy to pitch Bobo’s homemade feel as part of a “freshly baked” subcategory of the bar set are central elements of the idea.